Snowy Nights in Spring

By Kim Larson

She doesn’t speak except on snowy nights in spring.

Her back is turned to me as I prepare her bed. I can hear her speaking, but I ignore her, as I always have.

“Mama, mama...” she whispers to the dark window, perhaps mistaking the reflection of her own aged face for the woman she inherited it from. Or maybe, on these snowy nights, she forgets the time that’s passed, and calls to her mother hoping she might step out of the darkness and come back to her.

I close the curtains, then offer her my arm for support.

“Jelena, time for bed.”

This time she ignores me, transfixed on the window. Her frail hands are folded on her lap.

“Jelena,” I say, reaching for a hand, “you need to rest.”

Just as my fingertips touch her skin, she snaps her head up to face me. Her eyes, wide and pale blue, stare deep into mine.

Unblinking, she whispers in her strange voice, “...can you hear it?”

I listen for a moment ... I can hear it, just as I can hear Jelena’s words. Its voice, like cicadas, rides the wind. It’s calling out for me by name, from the dark forest in the looming mountains that surround our farm. “Mila... Mila...”

I hear it every night. In recent days it’s been louder, or closer. I’ve been trying to ignore it, pretending it’s just the wind.

“Jelena, come now, it’s time for bed.” I say as I take her hands into mine, and guide her away from the window. She comes without protest, but I know she has more to say.

Carefully I help her change into a nightgown, then get under the covers.

Everything’s prepared. She has water, a book, and a bell to ring in case she needs anything else. I can leave now, before she begins her story. I’ve heard it before, on other snowy nights, and I don’t want to hear it again.

But I stay, as I always have.

Maybe I’m hoping for a missed detail that can explain why I understand Jelena ... and the thing that lurks in the dark.

Or maybe I feel it’s my responsibility to listen, since no one else can.

I take a seat next to Jelena as she begins, “On snowy nights in spring, my mind is in the mountain forest again...

...

...the snow is deep enough to swallow me whole, so mama carries me in one arm, and my baby brother in the other.

The moon is bright and the night is cold, but there is a roaring heat behind us, from our burning home. Our entire village is in flames. I bury my face in mama’s hair to hide from the smoke, but there is nothing I can do to stop the screams.

Just as the trees obscure the blaze, my brother starts to cry. Mama sings to him in a sorrowful, but hushed, voice. I do not realize she is also crying until a tear drops from her chin onto my neck. There is a sourness in my throat, but I hold in the tears.

After some time, he calms. Mama keeps on walking.

Deeper into the mountain forest, the snow is above my mother’s knees. Her breath is labored. Each step is even slower than the last. But she cannot afford to rest. There is so much further to go, and the soldiers might be coming after us.

Shivering, I cling onto mama as tightly as possible. Another warm tear drops on my neck as mama pushes on.

It is not long before the snow is almost up to her hips. She struggles against the snow and wheezes with each breath.

Apart from my mother's breathing, the forest is deathly silent, that is, until my brother bursts into a fit of screams and tears. Mama tries to calm him, shushing and singing, but he cries even louder. Mama says he is hungry and that she needs to put me down to feed him.

Mother places me on the path she made, where the snow is not as deep. She sighs in relief to set me down.

I watch mama as she feeds my brother. She rocks side to side, humming sweetly as he drinks, as if we were home and everything was alright. As if papa was not shot dead in the doorway of a house that is now a pile of ash.

Mama’s humming is so calming, for a moment I think this is all just a dream. The cold wetness soaking through my clothes reminds me this is a waking nightmare.

Once my brother is done with his meal, mama bundles him up again. She then bends down to me and takes my face in her icy hand.

“Oh, my sweet girl, my sweet Jelena...” she says, staring deep into my eyes as another tear drops. She parts her lips to say something more, but it catches in her throat.

“Mama?” I ask, but she says nothing. Instead she kisses my forehead, looks at me once more, then stands without picking me up.

“Mama?” I ask again with my arms outstretched, but she ignores me, turning away and trudging on into the snow.

“Mama!” I cry out, and try to follow her, but the snow is too deep for me, even on the path.

“Mama! Mama!” I scream to her, but she does not come back. She hums to my whimpering brother as she disappears into the dark.

“Mama, mama...” I cry over and over, even when I cannot hear her humming anymore.

Alone in the mountain forest, on a snowy night in spring, I call to mama, not knowing what else to do. I am so scared and so, so cold. I am shaking, my skin is burning, and my eyes are frozen shut.

Slowly, the cold seeps into my bones, and then into my soul, until all of me is ice.

And then, I am not cold anymore. I am warm, as if the snow surrounding me were blankets and pillows in my own bed. Exhausted from shaking and crying, I lay down to sleep.

I dream of mama. She is at the kitchen stove, cooking oatmeal in a pot. I sit at the table. Mama turns to me and smiles, then says, “Today is going to be a lovely day.”

I look out the window, expecting a bright sunrise. Instead I see my own reflection against dark glass.

I watch myself ask, “Mama, why is it dark?”

Mama does not respond, because she is no longer there. Neither is the stove, or the kitchen, or the house...

Everything is dark...

...

A strange, unsettling voice awakens me. Is it a soldier that has caught up?

I open my eyes, somehow no longer frozen, and see that the thing looming over me is not a soldier, or a man, nor any earthly beast, though its oversized face reminds me of a stag. It also reminds me of a stone cathedral. Immense and imposing, with glowing eyes like candlelit windows, and many twisted antlers that reach to the heavens like pointed spires.

Emanating from it is an intense heat that has melted all the snow around us, and a pungent scent that reminds me of spoiled milk and freshly cut lilacs.

My heart is racing and every part of me wants to scream and run, but I cannot will myself to do either. Even as dread consumes my mind, I understand it is pointless. Walled-in by snow and completely alone, I am at the thing’s mercy.

“Child, do not be afraid. I am a friend.” It speaks to me in strange, vibrating words that I have never heard, and yet, I somehow understand. “Poor child, all alone. I will take you home.”

Still afraid, I say, in those same strange words, “But ... my home is gone.” I choke up, and a tear escapes me, “Soldiers ... burnt it down.”

“Poor child. Is there nowhere for you to go?”

“Mama... mama was taking me to uncle’s farm, in the valley. But she... she...”

“Be calm, child... I will take you there.”

The thing reaches down with a hand akin to a gnarled tree. It plucks me from the ground, and places me atop its behemoth head. Its fur is matted and reeks of rotting flowers, but its warmth is comforting.

I grab onto one of its countless antlers as it strides through the forest with ease. The blurring trees nauseate me, so I watch the ground. Below us appears a fresh path through the snow.

Mama is not far ahead.

No longer afraid, I ask the thing, “Will you carry mama too?”

“I will.” it says, and I smile. I imagine all of us, mama and my brother, and uncle Ivan, enjoying a hot meal in front of a roaring fireplace. It is not home, but it can be.

Soon we catch up to mama.

Mama does not notice our presence until she is almost underneath us. Whether warmth or stench, something alerts her. She turns around, and the moment she sees the thing towering over her, she screams even louder than when the soldiers marched through our front door.

To calm her, I try to explain that it is a friend and that it is here to help, but my words come out strange. They buzz like a fly caught in a hand.

Mama does not understand. She turns to run, but the thing snatches her up before she can take a single step. My baby brother tumbles from mama’s arms and disappears into the snow. He screams too, but his voice is muffled.

Holding mama up to its face, it asks her in deep, vibrating words she cannot understand, “What is the name of a mother who abandons her children?”

Mama responds with screams and wails. She struggles to break free, but the thing’s twisted fingers are unmovable.

“The devil.”

It raises her up higher, above the tips of its antlers. Looking up at my writhing mother, I see that her face is contorted into an expression of pure terror.

A single tear drops onto my forehead.

Like a butcherbird does to its prey, the thing skewers mama on its crown of antlers.

Her wailing turns to gurgles as hot blood rains down on me. It soaks into my hair and clothes, and warms my skin.

I try to scream, to call mama, but my voice is like a beehive.

...

“I remember nothing else from that night.” Jelena says, “Ivan found me in the barn at sunrise. He could not understand me, nor could anyone else.”

She stares at me, with wide, knowing eyes that look a lot like mine.

At this point, I’d tuck her in, kiss her forehead, say ‘Good night, grandma Jelena’ then leave her room. In my own room I’d check the windows, turn on some music, and try to ignore the chittering in the wind.

But tonight, I need an answer. I hear it now, calling to me, louder than ever before – louder than earlier tonight. The thing wants me, so I must do something I never have.

I ask Jelena in the same strange words it speaks, “The thing... what is it?”

There’s no hint of surprise on Jelena’s face. For a moment I think she hadn’t heard me, but then wrinkles tense along her brow and she parts her lips, as if searching for the words. “Father warned me to never wander far into the mountain forest. Biesy lurk in the darkest, oldest places.”

“Biesy, as in... devils?”

She confirms with closed eyes and a slight nod. The wind shakes our house, carrying with it the thing’s unmistakable shrill, “Mila... Mila...”

I take a slow, deep breath.

“Jelena, what does it want?” As soon as the words are out, I want to push them back in.

She opens her eyes again, and tears well in them. Her lips quiver.

“Oh, my sweet girl,” a tear falls, “it wants what it is owed.”